Blog
Efforts to end Distracted Driving continue
When an issue becomes a hot topic there is always the risk that it will burn hot for a time and then burn out. Distracted Driving drew a lot of heat in Secretary LaHood’s first year, so it’s good to see that the DOT is continuing to stoke the flames. They have announced the second National Distracted Driving Summit for Sept. 21, 2010. “Working together, we can put an end to the thousands of needless deaths and injuries caused by distracted driving each year,” said Secretary LaHood. “By getting the best minds together, I believe we can figure out how to get people to put down their phones and pay attention to the road.” League President Andy Clarke attended the summit last year and it was a successful event. Our involvement in the issue also continues. In early September, just a week before the summit, we will be leading a session on distracted driving, based on our Distracted Driving report, at the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike Conference in Chattanooga, TN.
The efforts of local advocates continue as well. Washington State recently upgraded their law from secondary to primary enforcement. This means that drivers can be ticketed for distracted driving without having committed an additional violation. Dave Janis, the policy director of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, sent me a copy of the rack card from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. The Alliance is distributing thousands of them. The card informs drivers of the new handheld cell phone and texting ban and the accompanying fine. On the back it gives a rather upsetting example of a fatality – that of a nineteen year-old local resident — caused by texting while driving.
front
back
This kind of education, combined with enforcement, is a significant part of the battle to change driver behavior and make the roads safer for bicyclists and motorists alike. As Lehman Holder, a Vancouver WA resident (and League member) who testified in favor of upgrading the distracted driving law told me in an email, “Will the upgrading of this law prevent future injuries or fatalities? Only time will tell, but I personally think it will also take some kind of “culture change,” for people to stop texting/talking on a hand-held cell phone while driving, similar to when not using a seat belt while driving became illegal. There was a lot of grumbling and complaining about that, but now probably 95% of drivers attach their seat belt out of reflex when they get in their vehicle.”
Darren Flusche
League Policy Director
Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.
Subscribe
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:28 am
Darren ~ Well done. I’d like to get some of those rack cards. Since I’m a member of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, I’ll contact Dave Janis and ask how I can obtain some of them.
August 3rd, 2010 at 12:27 pm
I appreciate this effort very much. I think that distracted driving is an important issue, not just for cyclists but for everyone on the road. However, I think there is a major misunderstanding here. People don’t seem to understand that it is your mind, not just your hand, that should not be distracted. Using a cell phone with a headset has been shown to be just as dangerous as using one held in your hand.
August 3rd, 2010 at 1:53 pm
The hands-free law is useless. As Eli said, its the distraction, not the manipulation, that is lethal. But I like page 2 of the flyer even for communities without a cell phone law. Where can I order some for Los Alamos?
August 3rd, 2010 at 2:02 pm
The handheld ban is not useless. Not every driver has hands-free equipment. But there’s no harm in pointing out that the law is insufficient.
Ultimately, the handheld ban is a politically feasible compromise. Only 8 states and DC have gone even that far. No state has flat out banned cellphone use for all drivers. I have no interest in waiting around until they do to get phone and texting bans on the books.
List of current DD laws:
http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html
August 3rd, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Ok, its not useless. Just flawed.
The handheld ban suggests to the motorist that they are safer with hands-free, and we know that is just plain wrong. So it promotes a false sense of safety and cause vs. effect to the motorist. Sure, as a political compromise, so be it, as we all know that politics means compromise. Even the present 0.08 BAC definition of DWI is a compromise but the legal definition of DWI has been increasingly conservative in its calculation of blood alcohol level vs. physiological affect on driving. One step at a time.
At any rate, this takes nothing away from the League’s excellent efforts to beat back the problem. Keep up the good work and cover our backs!
August 3rd, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Actually, driving is dangerous to cell phone use. In spite of having less attention for the road, you also have less attention for the call, which is why people who answer their cell phone on the road have lousy recall when the subject of the conversation comes up later.
This is why Japanese and Europeans seldom use cell phones while driving. The driving interferes with their call. They’d rather use public transportation, where they can speak and text all they want.
August 6th, 2010 at 9:17 am
[...] Efforts to end Distracted Driving continue [...]
August 8th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Thank you for this article. It is vital to Public Safety that texting while driving stops. We are headed to Washington DC to speak with Secretary La Hood on 21 September about this on going Public Safety hazard. We will be speaking with Sec. La Hood about our new mobile phone app, TextNoMore that rewards drivers for NOT texting while driving. We realize that drivers need to have an incentive to do the right thing- each time TextNoMore is activated the user receives a reward coupon from one of our participating vendors- just for being a safe driver. I am an avid cyclist having participated in California AIDSRide8: San Francisco to LA 575 miles in 7 days to raise money for HIV/AIDS Services in both communities. I continue to cycle and am amazed at the number of drivers who continue to text while driving even though it has been against Oregon Law for several months. We are joining forces with our city government, not for profits, local and national businesses to stop distracted driving. However, we need your help to get the word out about TextNoMore. Buy the App. Save Lives. Earn Rewards.
Best Regards,
Sharon Murtagh
President
TextNoMore, LLC
503-951-8397
August 16th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
I like the rack cards very much. I would like two pallets of them to hand out, but a “$124 ticket”? Come on you light weights, peoples lives are at stake here. Make it at least $500 and community service. That $124 ticket is not anything to many people. You are being way too light on people who willingly break the law. That is a joke. It might as well be $20. For that reason alone I can’t get behind it. Get serious and I will hand out thousands of those cards to everyone’s doorsteps.
August 31st, 2010 at 11:06 am
New technology is available that is changing the way the problem of Distracted Driving will be handled from now on. PhoneBeagle Mobile Monitoring http://www.phonebeagle.com — monitors cell phone activity and issues an alert when calls or texting happen while driving. About 500,000 people a year are injured in accidents caused by distracted driving. Serious stuff. Simple solution, from PhoneBeagle